The concepts involved in the present inventions relate to operations support, provisioning and the like for managed IP services in a new IP over fiber to the premises type metropolitan area network.
The explosive growth of e-commerce, Internet-based businesses, and multimedia streaming is creating an insatiable demand for network bandwidth. At the same time, new network-enabling technologies are fueling the desire for bandwidth by opening up new possibilities for its use. This in turn has accelerated the emergence of more data-intensive applications, which are further fueling the demand for bandwidth. This cycle is driving a spiraling demand for bandwidth and the technology to support and deploy this bandwidth.
Until recently it was a given that data sometimes did not get through, or packet delivery might be sporadic, or only at a best-effort rate. However, with the accelerating rise in the level of complexity and sophistication in e-commerce, real-time transaction processing, and media streaming, this is no longer acceptable. Service levels must now be defined and adhered to. While xe2x80x9cQuality of Servicexe2x80x9d (QoS) is a concept with a nominal standards-body derived definition, the requirements for Extranet/Intranet networking services are driving QoS towards metrics which are clearly measurable, verifiable, and reportable.
Furthermore, meeting these QoS metrics is becoming a stringent requirement for service providers to meet their contractual obligations. Thus, Quality of Service and the measurement and assurance of QoS have taken a significant role in defining future network architecture requirements. This has in turn created new traffic engineering challenges for network service providers. There is now a need to be able to guarantee various performance metrics, such as minimum latency, bandwidth or jitter, across shared network infrastructures. Customers require guarantees of one or more of these metrics to ensure proper performance, for example for latency sensitive applications such as Voice-over-IP (VoIP) or for bandwidth-intensive applications such as streaming multimedia. Designing an architecture that can meet this requirement is an engineering challenge. Integrating this architecture with the unpredictability and underestimated capacity of the public Internet becomes even more of a challenge.
Business customer requirements for network services are becoming increasingly sophisticated and stringent. The salient features such as network reliability, security, resource availability, network configuration flexibility, service profile manageability, and application based QoS networked elements are prerequisites for real-time business applications. To meet such requirements, the underlying network platform should have multifaceted features and functionality. The capacity of the transport network not only should be large enough to accommodate future growth, but also flexible enough to be apportioned on a dynamic, on-demand basis. Additionally, the platform should support Layer 3 routing as well as Layer 2 switching in order to accommodate different customer network architectures and protocols.
With the development of any type of network that might meet the general needs outlined above there comes an attendant need for improved systems for operations support, provisioning and management of the IP services provided to the customers. Customers are demanding that the services be up and running or running in the latest requested modified form, within minutes of a new service request. Customers also are demanding that the data network provide an ever increasing degree of reliability. To allow a carrier to meet these customer demands, there is a clear need for network monitoring, management and support systems, which allow the carrier to maintain and provision the network quickly and efficiently. There also is an associated need to monitor the performance of the network, to monitor and manage the xe2x80x9chealthxe2x80x9d thereof. Such monitoring must be able to determine and report a wide range of relevant performance metrics, which may impact on customer traffic and/or show compliance with customer"" service level agreements.
With the developments of an advanced communication network, meeting the general communication needs outlined above, Applicants also have developed improved systems for operations support, for monitoring, provisioning and management of the IP services provided to the customers by such an advanced metropolitan area fiber network or the like.
In one aspect, the invention contemplates a service level manager, for operations support in an extended-area data communications network. The service level manager comprises at least one network database, storing network topology information. Preferably the information in the database(s) further includes service and customer information. The database(s) also receive and store dynamic service-related operations data, from agents in the network. A persistence layer module processes data from the network database(s). This processing provides data representing a dynamic view of the topology as well as data representing operations of the extended-area data communications network. The service level manager also includes a user interface, for providing information to and receiving inputs from users. As disclosed, the user interface is accessible both by carrier staff personnel and by end-use customers.
The inventive manager further includes a service level manager application, in communication with the persistence layer module and the user interface. The functions of this application include monitoring the operations of the extended-area data communications network, by analyzing semantic transparency or time transparency of data traffic through the network based on the data provided by the persistence layer module from the agents in the network. The application provides reports to users, via the user interface, of the monitored network operations with respect to specific network services. The application also interacts with elements of the extended-area data communications network to control service traffic through the network, for example to increase a customer""s bandwidth upon request as input by the customer or by carrier staff.
The service level manager application preferably is a multi-layered, modular, scalable, distributed, verifiable, data-driven, vendor independent, and platform neutral architecture, for example, based on Enterprise Java Beans. The service level manager application may deliver unified service level management to the carrier""s customers, partners, staff personnel and other operations support systems. The preferred form of this inventive application provides service layer and network management layer services, such as QoS monitoring/reporting and automatic bandwidth increases/decreases. The service level manager application collects network and service related operations data from various agents, analyzes this data and transforms the data into accessible knowledge. The application also provides a convenient interface to interact with the network elements, to modify operations thereof on an as-needed basis in real-time.
In one embodiment, the application layer comprises a topology service module, for obtaining network or service topology information from the network database(s). This layer also includes a monitoring service module, for communicating with the agents to obtain the dynamic service-related operations data. The service level manager application further comprises a provisioning service module. This module converts a service provisioning request into instructions for implementing a service change identified by the request. This conversion is based at least in part on the network or service topology information obtained by the topology service module. In this embodiment, the service level manager application also includes a measurement service module. This module computes reports of the monitored network operations from data accumulated by the monitoring service module.
In the preferred embodiments, the inventive operation support systems manage an inventive type of distributed data communications network. Such a network comprises a plurality of regional networks. Each of the regional networks includes access ring networks, which include edge-point of presence (E-POP) switches and at least one mega-point of presence (M-POP) switch. Data links extend from the E-POP switches to individual customer locations. An optical fiber access ring interconnects the E-POP switches and at least one M-POP switch, in each access ring network. Each regional network also includes an optical fiber backbone ring, which interconnects the M-POP switches of the various access ring networks. The network may include multiple backbone rings. At least one giga-point of presence (G-POP) switch, coupled to the optical fiber backbone ring, provides data communication to the Internet as well as data communication to and from other regional networks via the Internet.
Another aspect of the invention contemplates the addition of out-of-band management, to a distributed data network of the type described in the preceding paragraph. In this aspect of the invention, there is a service level operations support system comprising operations support agents at various points in each of the regional networks. The system including agents at the G-POP switches for monitoring and control of the G-POP switches. The service level operations support system includes at least one management system, such as an implementation of the inventive service level manager or a network operations center. The service level operations support system also includes an out of band signaling system. This signaling system includes a router coupled to the management system and routers coupled to the agents at the G-POP switches. An out-of-band network connects between the routers, for providing data communications between the management system and the agents at the G-POP switches. In the preferred embodiment, the out-of-band network includes a wide area data network that is independent of the regional networks and may include back-up links for dial-up communications via the public switched telephone network.
Further aspects of invention relate to the unique software products for implementing the inventive operations support systems, such as the service level manager. A software product, in accord with such an aspect of invention, includes at least one machine-readable medium and information carried by the medium. The information carried by the medium may be executable code, and/or one or more databases of network related information. These inventive concepts encompass operation from a single, common computer system, although it is also envisaged that the code and/or the database(s) may reside in separate media and run on two or more programmed computer systems in communication via network components.
A computer readable medium, as used herein, may be any physical element or carrier wave, which can bear instructions or code for performing a sequence of steps in a machine-readable form or associated data. Examples of physical forms of such media include floppy disks, flexible disks, hard disks, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, any other optical medium, a RAM, a ROM, a PROM, an EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, as well as media bearing the software in a scannable format. A carrier wave type of medium is any type of signal that may carry digital information representative of the data or the instructions or code for performing the sequence of steps. Such a carrier wave may be received via a wireline or fiber-optic network, via a modem, or as a radio-frequency or infrared signal, or any other type of signal which a computer or the like may receive and decode.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following and the accompanying drawings or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.